Filmform (est. 1950) is dedicated to preservation, promotion and worldwide distribution of experimental film and video art. Constantly expanding, the distribution catalogue spans from 1924 to the present, including works by Sweden’s most prominent artists and filmmakers, available to rent for public screenings and exhibitions as well as for educational purposes.
A film about multi-media artist Kjartan Slettemark’s Nixon Visions, the collective title of his famous pictorial version of president Nixon, made 1971-74. It has its beginning in, among other things, Slettemark’s slogan ‘Opposition Must Pay Off’. The new, coffee-loving Nixon is marketed in a satirical balancing act between humor and seriousness. Slettemark’s advertising campaign is ‘a study of Nixon’s mental health’ in which ‘the face is the mirror of the soul’.
Born in 1948 in Stockholm, Sweden, where he is still based.
Hans Esselius works as a film-maker and artist with computer graphics. His education includes Konstfackskolan, Department of Photography, Private student with artist Kjartan Slettemark (5-years of high art school), and Högskolan i Skövde, Konstinriktade studier i datorgrafik, among others. Has worked actively with Arbetsgruppen för Film, Stiftelsen Filmform, Filmverkstan, Föreningen Video Nu samt Föreningen Elektronisk Bildkonst.
Previous exhibitions include Stockholm Art Fair, Galleri Baggen (Digital grafik), Grafikens Hus, Grafisk Revolution (Digital Big Image Poster), and Konstakademien, Stockholm, 12:e Grafiktrienalen (Digital grafik), and his art is represented at Malmö Konstmuseeum and the Fine Art Research and Holographic Center, Chicago, among other places.
Kjartan Slettemark
1932-2008. Kjartan Slettemark has been using moving image as a means of expression since the 60’s. A crucial work in experimental film is Nixon Visions (1971), a collaboration with Hans Esselius. As early as 1967 and 1968 he made the films Symfoni Realista 1–3, based on politically charged performance-shows. During the 60’s and 70’s Kjartan Slettemark often filmed with an aesthetics related to the current political movement at the time, the works were always presented at performances and happenings, such as Polisväxten (1969). In the 80’s Kjartan Slettemark moved on to video technique and was one of the co-founders of the video workshop Video Now (Video Nu) at Skeppsholmen in Stockholm.
